1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates generally to visual mapping systems, and, more particularly, to enabling a user to view and interact with a visual map in an external application.
2. Description of the Background Art
A visual map is a diagram that represents ideas and/or information in topics. Examples of visual maps are mind maps, topic maps, semantic networks, and concept maps. Visual maps are increasingly used to help people generate, classify, and/or organize ideas and information and to see such ideas and information in a hierarchical, visual layout. Visual maps are used for project management, work-flow analysis, organizational charts, and other purposes.
FIG. 1 is an example of a visual map for information related to a wireless communication project meeting. The visual map in FIG. 1 is a mind map. Mind maps are made up of hierarchically-arranged topics. The main topics in FIG. 1 are “Action Items”, “Purpose”, “Agenda”, “Time Place”, “Participants”, and “Purpose.” Each of these topics has subtopics. For instance, “Implementation” is a subtopic for “Action Items,” and “Carry out Launch” is a subtopic of “Implementation.” Users typically create topics in a visual map by inserting or importing text and graphic elements into topics.
Users typically create visual maps using proprietary visual mapping software. Mindjet LLC'S MINDMANGER® software is an example of such software.
One limitation users of visual maps currently face is that in order for a user to share a visual map with other users, the other users have to have visual mapping software capable of opening and interacting with the visual map. While current technology allows visual maps to be saved as PDF files, such files are static files. A user viewing the PDF file is not able to interact with the map (e.g., expand and collapse topics).
Therefore, there is a desire to be able to share visual maps with users that do not have a proprietary visual mapping application, where the recipients of the map can interact with the visual map using an external application (i.e., a non-visual mapping application). For example, it would be desirable to enable a user to view and interact with a map in PDF file or in a web browser.